Strings To A Compromise
by The Serial Dabbler
Summary: Spectral debts need to be paid and where a previous deal remains; concessions have to be made...on both sides. Trouble brews when those involved are unwilling to bend…and breakings no longer an option. Let it burn babes. *Sequel of sorts


A/N: _'It doesn't matter. Lydia, I have a chance to teach you something here: you have got to take the upper hand in all situations or people, whether they're dead of alive, will walk all over you' – Delia _

Note: This works as a squeal (of sorts) to Strings To A Deal, although it could _possibly_ (doubtfully) stand on its own, the references aren't all that clear-cut…except for the complete and utter voiding of the B-word. Stubborn little muse _still_ buzzing, so (_heaps_) more caffeine (I've found fellow caffeine enthusiasts amongst reviewers, so it's all good) and this is what I have to show for it.

Again is primarily inspired by the movie, with the odd splash of the cartoon.

I spent the better part of my childhood dabbling with the wine glasses; which _allegedly_ set my parent's teeth on edge; although growing up I seem to have developed enough restraint to resist the temptation of doing it when I'm out _nice _places…apparently not everyone likes it (and some waiters can be _grossly _unreasonable…kidding!). Still sod them! Who the hell wants to be normal anyway? Too much effort, for one thing.

…Moving on.

Spectral debts need to be paid and where a previous deal remains; concessions have to be made...on both sides. Trouble brews when those involved are unwilling to bend…and breakings no longer an option. Let it burn babes.

Rated T: For _obvious _reasons; contains _some_ swearing.

Disclaimer: I own nothing that bores any resemblance whatsoever to Betelgeuse, in any way, shape or form. Credit must go, unquestionably, to Tim Burton.

EDIT: _Somewhat_ edited version, nothing that will change the overall tone, but more so to iron out a few of the writing pitfalls I gracelessly fell into! I'd like to throw out a quick note of thanks to Electric Risk, for her review, she was right in saying that typos drive you _crazy_, (Oh...I also got a real kick out of: _that typos do not a bad writer make _line) I can't believe I missed courtesy and courteous so _many_ times!

Strings To A Compromise 

He'd taken her to a pub, _The Nag's Head,_ which give him his dues, was actually rather well kept. Getting there had been a trial in itself, travelling poltergeist, although cheaper than a cab was certainly no where near as pleasant…especially when his hands had drifted a little too low for her liking.

He'd walked her straight through the pub, flicking his wrist at the elderly woman behind the bar, whom Lydia later learned also had a knack for seeing ghosts, before disappearing out the backdoor, towards the cellar.

They'd ended up, perched on bar stools in _The Severed Head_, a ghostly hangout hidden in _The Nag's _cellar, run by the pub's rather inviting, yet horrendously decapitated previous owner. Betelgeuse appeared to have known the haunt well, and after he'd thrown a casual _'Lyds sees dead people', _the bar keeps way the evening had been oddly enjoyable.

Displaying the landlord's head on the bar was quite the party-piece.

He'd been trying to impress her; she'd known that…and much to her annoyance he'd succeeded. She supposed he thought she'd be more co-operative if he kept her in good spirits. Betelgeuse was quick, and she'd realised just as quickly that he always had _some_ idea swirling around his head…she was under few illusions that the only reason he'd _behaved_ himself was because they'd been attempting to settle the score between them.

That had been _two_ months ago.

And she couldn't say they were any further forward.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The air fell heavily around them and if he'd sensed the change he didn't show it.

"I already told you Lyds, the old broad's got nothing on me," he grinned, looking decisively smug. "Clean as a whistle me, babe."

"I know," she replied curtly, running a frustrated hand through her hair, ignoring the way it tangled at the ends. "I've heard it all before Beej, staking a claim…ticket out of the afterlife, but none of that is going to mean anything if you keep this up. Do you really think Juno's just going to ignore the spectacle you're making?"

His eyebrow lifted, though the grin didn't leave his face.

"You worried about me kid?"

She snorted.

"I wouldn't waste my time. You're over six hundred years old Betelgeuse, if you can't look after yourself by _now_ that's your problem."

"You don't mean that Lyds," he sounded so sure of himself.

"It would make things easier if I did," she answered sullenly. "You're not stupid…you know better than most how these situations work and if you keep making trouble Juno's not going to stay behind her desk for long."

Tuning things had been _hard_, fine-tuning even more so considering they'd made very little progress towards the first. They'd managed, though she couldn't remember how, to establish a tentative friendship, coupled with an odd sort of indifference which gave them both the privacy they needed to think.

For the most part Betelgeuse was loud, obnoxious and sleazy…and rather open about being all three. Though the more time she spent with him the more she came to understand that although universally consistent, there was more to him than flashy tricks and sadistic ploys…there always had been, she'd just been too young to realise it.

Lydia couldn't say whether four years counted for much amongst the dead; according to Betelgeuse four years hauled up in the waiting room had just been a complete and utter waste of time…but time meant something slightly different to the living.

She wasn't a kid anymore.

He pulled down his sleeves, fastening his cuffs in one smooth, well-practiced movement that deliberately caught her attention when she'd ignored the act countless times before.

"What we got's legit babes, I got a valid reason to be here, the old bat ain't got a leg to stand on." His suit looked cleaner than usual and that immediately set her on edge. She raked her eyes over him carefully, looking for fresh marks that might give her some clue as to what he'd attempted to scrub off, before turning from him. "You aren't gonna ask what happened?"

She shrugged and busied herself at the sink, plucking a thin-tipped glass from the draining rack and filling it with water.

"What's the point? I ask you and you throw me some vague comment that's no better than a lie. I'm not your keeper Betelgeuse," her face darkened a fraction and she turned on him, pale fingers wrapped tightly around the glass. "I can't send you back and short of _attempting_ to bind you I can't really stop you…but this is my home and I won't have you bringing whatever shit you've gotten yourself into to my doorstep."

He looked slightly taken aback by that, green eyes roaming the length of her body in a way she hadn't seen (or more accurately _caught_) him doing since the night of his re-appearance. There was an edge to his gaze, a finely buried wariness lurking in their depths that both amused her and disheartened her. He was scrutinizing her, and she couldn't exactly blame him, it wasn't often that she turned on him…and when she did it was because he'd given her a damn good reason.

It irritated her that a part of her understood, when she didn't particularly want to understand. She wished she could say that six hundred years of wandering the spectral seams between life and death had given him some perspective, but the truth was almost as grubby as the poltergeist that stood before her.

Betelgeuse just didn't like rules…and he broke them for the hell of it, because six hundreds years was a long time to be _bored_.

Delia's words fluttered to the foremost of her mind, the only life lesson her step mother had managed to pass along that held any value. If she didn't stand her ground when it counted then Betelgeuse would quite willingly, rip it out from under her, and she knew the resulting fall wouldn't bode well for anyone.

"Even if those chumps managed to catch up with me, they couldn't do nothing…I got insurance."

There was an unpleasant edge to his voice and she responded in kind.

"So what, you thought you'd try your luck while you had the chance and if things blew up in your face you'd just _marry_ me?"

The crestfallen look on her face, didn't sit particularly well with Betelgeuse and he supposed, somewhat begrudgingly, that had he been in her position, he would have struck out long before she had. He cleared his throat, a dark voice in the back of his mind whispering that his next words weren't an attempt to make things easier for her.

"You're looking at the most eligible bachelor this side of Saturn babe," he grinned his most disarming grin, which he imagined still looked more seedy than charming and Lydia found she had trouble keeping up with him. "Don't pretend you're not getting anything outta this."

She considered telling him she wasn't but there was very little point in baiting him now.

"You're impossible Beej."

"Yeah well…you're lucky you're hot Lyds 'cause you ain't the easiest chick to get along with either."

Claws scraped loudly along the windowsill and a sudden flash of black appeared in the kitchen, tripping across the floor boards. It darted through the poltergeist's legs, followed by the sound of tearing fabric and a low hiss. Betelgeuse sneered, lifting his legs to hover an inch or two above the ground and crossing them. His hand moved to his ankle and he fingered the rip in his trousers, tracing the clean gash stretched across the shrunken flesh underneath.

"Fucking cat," he spat callously, fingers itching. "Shoulda left it to rot, Lyds."

"It's your own fault Percy doesn't like you Betelgeuse, he's obviously got better taste in people than I have."

"Cats are damn hard to get rid of babes, once you take 'em in they ain't going anywhere," he waited until her back was turned to flick a spark of his juice at the tap, watching with some satisfaction as a wayward stream of water splashed over the cat's nose. The cat hissed, rising up on his haunches and arching his back before fleeing from the countertop. "Can't even shake 'em when they die; spirits jus' end up following you around."

"Bit like you then," she shot back flippantly and sank down, rather ungracefully, at the kitchen table.

She noticed with growing unease that he'd moved away from her, to lean against the workbench, though his feet remained firmly above the floor. It was unsettling really, how well _behaved_ he'd been since she'd (adversely) given him free pass to her apartment. He still threw her the odd lecherous comment, sleazy suggestion or depraved grin…but he'd not made another move to touch her. She was grateful in a way; she didn't think she'd be able to think clearly with him badgering her…though she couldn't exactly congratulate herself on drawing any steadfast conclusions either.

Lydia remembered when he'd kissed her, and wished she could say she didn't, but the memories were burned into her mind's eye and what frightened her was not that she couldn't rid herself of the images but that she had very little desire to try. She remembered grasping at his lapels, and feared that she had meant to pull him closer…her fingers had clasped his jacket far too tightly for her to push him away.

It was hard to believe he could ignite such heat within her when his body was _cold_.

…But that was a dangerous train of thought and there were other elements of their situation she needed to sort out before she made any real decisions.

"Barbara and Adam went to see Juno," she offered quietly, suddenly; her index finger trailing the tip of her glass, emitting a deep, melodic hum that pierced through the otherwise tense silence. "They got back this morning."

"So you sold me out to your attic spooks?" he sneered, and she realised she probably hadn't broached this as well as she could have, the Maitlands were a sore spot for both of them in there different ways…but she supposed that no matter how tactfully she'd brought them up, the following conversation was never going to be pleasant. "You hoping they could help you get rid of me babes?"

She shook her head.

"I gave up on the idea of getting rid of you when I couldn't take your ring off Beej."

He didn't look any less skeptical.

"Sure you did Lyds, lemme guess my name jus' popped up while you and Babs were talking about the weather?"

"This isn't an attack," she argued dimly. "Let's face it Betelgeuse, there's no keeping you a secret. The Maitlands would have found out sooner or later and I'd rather they heard it from me then run into you."

"Run into me! And how're they gonna do that? Those deadbeats still got a hundred and twenty years on their haunt."

"You told me you've got it in for Barbara. I wasn't just going to let you spring yourself on them."

"We've been over this Lyds."

Her mind flittered back to their last conversation about the Maitlands, where Betelgeuse had, albeit reluctantly, agreed to cut the ghostly couple some slack. That didn't necessarily mean anything though, she'd learnt to read him that little bit better over the last few months and he'd given her more than enough reason to suspect he hadn't let that particular resentment go.

"We have," she agreed plainly. "But who's to say your word is any better than mine?"

She'd backed out of a marriage, and although the circumstances were different, there wasn't an awful lot stopping him from doing the same now. She may have yet to see the worst of Betelgeuse but she'd seen enough of him to realise that although he wasn't _quite_ as bad as most people thought, he was by no means a _nice_ guy. And a part of her wouldn't put it past him to torment the Maitlands in a bid to both have his revenge and in some way punish her for wanting out the first time.

The glass shattered beneath her fingers, in a sudden, ferocious sprinkling of toothed pieces.

"That's really fucking annoying babes."

It was enough to startle her but somewhere in the more cohesive part of her mind she absently registered that although the shards covered her table, they'd been careful not to pierce her skin. Fallen in a way that looked so decidedly abnormal she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that even in his anger he'd made the effort not to harm her.

Her fingertips felt warm and she closed her eyes momentarily, feeling across the dull space around her for the lingering traces of his energy. The air was still, filled with a coolness derived from something far more _unnatural_ than the brisk temperatures outside and she fought back a shudder at the memories that sensation dredged up.

He was waiting her out.

She could leave the kitchen, get up from the table and leave him to both the literal and proverbial mess he'd made…though she realised if she walked away now nothing would really change between them...and she didn't want to spend another two months walking on eggshells.

"You could have asked me to stop."

"I ain't gonna fucking apologise Lyds," he spat, and she knew wasn't referring to the glass.

She held his gaze with far more conviction than she felt.

"Neither am I."

He made a move as if to speak again, but something dark flashed across his eyes and she could tell he'd thought better of it. Instead he came towards the table, kicking out one of the sturdier chairs and slouching down opposite her. He stretched his legs out and she could feel the solid pressure of his muddy leather boots against her leg. She couldn't say it really bothered her, she'd become oddly _comfortable_ around Betelgeuse…

…though a stubborn little voice protested that having him constantly underfoot hadn't left her with much of a choice.

His hand came forward and a glass appeared in front of him, chipped at the rim and brimming with a bronzed liquid that smelled distinctively like whiskey.

"You want one?"

An errant and slightly unwelcome thought struck her that she really should have learnt not to play his games by now.

"No," she answered frankly, watching him lift his own glass. "I'd quite like to remember the outcome of this conversation tomorrow."

He took a swig, slow and deliberate and she could tell he was weighing-up his options. He'd been expecting her to agree, coaxing her to throw caution to the wind and fold under what should have been an innocent suggestion.

Betelgeuse was dead and she knew better than to think she stood any chance against him at this. Alcohol had a far less detrimental affect on the dead than it did the living, and if she gave in now she might as well just throw whatever control she'd managed to scrape together down the drain herself before he attempted to take it from her. He didn't like dancing to someone else's tune; that much had been obvious from the first time she'd laid eyes on him.

He enjoyed having the upper hand…and he made a living out of manipulating spirits who, more often than not, just wanted his help. Spirits who were generally in such dire situations, that he didn't need to twist their arms this way and that in order to strike a deal…he did that for the hell of it.

There was no way she'd let him to do it to her.

She was tired of playing his games…and she'd had enough of walking unthinkingly into whatever set up he'd laid out for her.

"We really gonna do this Lyds?"

It struck her with disturbing certainty that this was her last chance to back out.

"Yes."

He shrugged.

"It's been a long time coming," he didn't seem as edgy as she thought he'd be. "Spit it out then kid."

"I've been thinking," she replied vaguely, glancing away from his face to trace the contours of the wood beneath her fingers. "About…" _Us! _The word almost slipped out. "This," she supplied instead. "I realised that I don't know as much as I thought I did."

"I ain't following you."

"I need to understand where I fit into all this," living with the Maitlands had encouraged her to read up about the dead and she'd devoured the majority of the books she could get her hands on. It had given her a better idea of the rules that surrounded death but also burdened her with a false confidence about the _depth_ of her understanding. "I'm tired of always feeling like I'm one step behind you Beej."

Her eyes, bewitching, stared up at him with reluctant longing and confusion and he found himself far less inclined to make this difficult for her.

"What you wanna know babes?"

'_What exactly do you think happened between us Betelgeuse?' _her earlier words had plagued her mind almost relentlessly for the past two months, but it was his response that haunted her.

'_Why don't you tell me Lyds?' _those words had taken hold of her dreams and spun them into a tangled mass of vague thoughts and hazy feelings she'd been too frightened to comprehend. It was largely those words, coupled with the odd little unguarded gesture here and there that made her doubt her inability to answer him…though she stubbornly maintained he'd made no effort to answer her either.

"Why you're still here."

They were honest words; honest to the point where Lydia hadn't thought about how they'd sound and although she hadn't said them in spite when she replayed them quietly in her head she could see how they might have sounded a little vindictive. His face darkened, and his glass landed on the table with a heavy-handed _thunk_. She hurriedly pressed on, driven by the sudden need to keep the peace and stop things from spiralling even more spectacularly out of control.

"I don't know what I thought was going to happen," she admitted softly, and the distinctive change in her tone seemed to halt whatever movement Betelgeuse had been about to make. "I didn't think you'd stick around. You were so fixated on getting _out_ that I thought you'd take off the first chance you got."

Betelgeuse's honk of laughter would have been unnerving, but Lydia didn't even blink.

"Might 'a done once," his voice was light, and there was an odd sort of amusement in his green eyes that she didn't understand. "I'm not out kid…_close_, but no freaking cigar." _Yet!_ He chose to leave that particular titbit out, no need to bait the girl. Any credible lie faltering, he went with the obvious truth. "Reason I get to play out here with the breathers is 'cause of you babes."

That was probably as honest as she'd ever get him to be, and the hazy note of something that _almost_ resembled sincerity in his tone threw her a little more than she would have liked. It wasn't the straight-talking answer she'd been hoping for, but the implications were clear enough.

"You anchored yourself here through _me_."

The accusation in her statement was weak at best.

"That ring ain't jus' for decoration," her eyes fell to her ring finger, the somewhat tarnished band sparkling in the dull light. She was struck with the rather childish urge to try and pull it off, but that would do very little to help her make a point and it wasn't as if she'd succeed in removing it. "It's my claim on you Lyds; long as you're wearing it I ain't going anywhere."

Suddenly the thought of a hacksaw didn't seem nearly as unreasonable as it had before; if nothing else it would wipe that smug look off his face. Lydia shook her head to rid herself of the particularly gruesome image that accompanied the thought and decided that although it would throw a considerably large spanner in the workings of Betelgeuse's plans, it wouldn't really be worth it in the end. Her mind conjured up memories of her _almost_ wedding and she recalled the moment he'd pulled a severed finger from his pocket and wondered absently if the previous wearer of the ring had managed to remove it…or if Betelgeuse had done it for her.

She stubbornly held back the shudder that crept up her spine and decided that she didn't want to know.

"I'm not going to spend my life waiting to be your scapegoat Betelgeuse. If you keep tempting the fates sooner or later they're going to caught up with you," he'd asked her once if she still wanted _in,_ and when she'd told him she didn't, it had been the truth. When she'd stopped looking at death as a way out she'd learnt to take responsibility for her life. "I'm not willing to be your trump card."

He swept up his glass and downed the remainder of his whiskey, through his eyes never left her face.

She noted with some trepidation that the air also seemed cooler.

"You wanna be careful there Lyds," his voice held warning. "You don't wanna go making an enemy outta me, I can juice up things you ain't ever going to be ready for kid."

Her eyes were dark, and they stared at him with sudden dismay, as if, after all these years, she finally realised the danger she was in; the danger she had always been in. He thought he'd find some sort of satisfaction in her panic, (he wouldn't quite call it fear) but all it seemed to do was irritate him. The kid had always had the good sense to be wary of him but he could never recall a time when he'd struck genuine fear into her…a disdainful little idea settled in his head that he didn't actually _want_ to frighten her.

Lydia didn't answer for a long moment, but when she did, she sounded distant, thoughtful.

"I don't think I've got it in me to fight you Beej," he didn't miss the fact that despite his mostly empty threat she'd still used her pet name for him. "I don't think you have either."

He considered her sharply from across the table, his empty glass disappearing with a twitch of his fingers.

"This ain't a war babes…already told you I ain't gonna force you to do anything."

Her breath left her in a sudden rush, and she wavered unsteadily in her seat for a moment before stubbornly collecting herself. Her eyes lost whatever glaze they'd previously held and she blinked several times, inhaling a deep, soothing breath.

"I know."

It was a strange dynamic, Lydia understood that much, but normalcy hadn't served her well in the past so there was very little point in wishing for it now.

Her apartment was small, cramped…and dark, that was primarily what had attracted her to it at first. Her parents had found it somewhat claustrophobic and they'd become rather jumpy about the dark over the years. It wasn't what they'd have chosen, but they'd made the effort to support her even if they hadn't understood the draw it held.

The loneliness that lingered from her teenage years never stung quite as badly in her gloomy flat as it had in Winter Rivers.

Though somehow two short months and a wayward poltergeist had shattered whatever serenity she'd managed to scrape together. Her undersized apartment felt large…and disturbingly _empty_ when Betelgeuse wasn't around, and if she was honest with herself she actually missed having another presence crowding her home when she'd been content to be alone before.

She was decidedly careful to separate her somewhat out of place desire for company from the sensation of missing _him. _

But the lines between the two were blurring at an alarming rate…and she wasn't entirely sure whether or not she cared.

"I'm not looking for a way out," she'd barely allowed herself to think it, and now she was saying it as surely as _he'd_ made her vows. "I don't want out."

He inclined his head slightly to watch her, and she did her best to ignore him. Betelgeuse gave a low whistle and when that didn't catch her attention he pressed on.

"Looks like I really did a number on you, kid."

The smile that crossed her face was fleeting.

"I wouldn't want to give you that much credit," she murmured. "I've been screwed up for as long as I can remember."

"If you ain't looking for a loophole then what the hell is this about Lyds?"

It had been about a lot of things and when she'd first sat down at the table she hadn't been sure what she'd hoped to achieve by finally playing things out to the end. Somewhere during the exchange that had changed and now she'd openly committed herself to a chilling bargain that had never really been anyone's concern but her own, the words flowed smoothly and unchecked from her mouth.

"I'm not going to be the little woman Beej. If we're going to do this you're going to have to level with me."

Betelgeuse was silent and she wondered whether he was turning things over in his head or concocting a way to throw her off the scent. She let him have his moment and instead listened to the steady thrum of his fingertips against the table. It took her a minute or two to realise they matched the thunder of her heartbeat, and she risked a glance at his face to see whether he had noticed.

"You wanna know? Fine! It ain't my fault if you don't like what you hear," Betelgeuse said bluntly, fingers tapping that little bit faster as her heart pounded harder against her chest. "Only thing you really need to know Lyds is the guy was a nasty piece of work, and that's saying something coming from me. I jus' sent him off to dear ol' Juney's a' bit ahead of schedule…did the freaking world a favour."

Lydia supposed it was odd how it didn't surprise her, but on some level she'd always known he was capable of worse than snakes and stairwell plummets. She raked her eyes over his form in one slow swoop and noticed a few stray flecks of blood that he'd missed when cleaning off his suit.

"Why kill him?" she was curious more than anything and she could see the poltergeist had been expecting something different in her reaction. Betelgeuse rarely involved himself in situations where he didn't stand to gain anything when the dust settled and she couldn't imagine he'd gain much by killing a random low-life. Except perhaps some form of sadistic satisfaction, though for some reason that made even less sense to her. "I doubt you'd rid the streets of a petty criminal off your own back; no offense Beej but I can't see you being that self-scarifying."

His eyes burned with a heat that far surpassed the anger he felt towards the Maitlands and she shifted uncertainly in her seat. A chill rose up her spine, as if she'd been doused in cold water, and she knew almost instantly she wasn't going to like what came next.

"Damn bastard been hanging round outside the flat for weeks, watching the joint; I weren't gonna leave him to it 'case he came by when I weren't around."

The shock that flashed across her face must have been more intense than she'd first realised, because he stood from his seat and drifted around the table, crouching down beside her. She shifted awkwardly in her chair as she turned to face him, noticing absently that his hand had come to rest on her thigh.

"You didn't notice, huh babes?," his voice had softened, and although still rough around the edges he didn't sound anywhere near as confrontational. His fingers squeezed lightly at her leg, in a gesture she found far more comforting than she wanted to admit. "It's not your fault you know, breather world don't hold much of a pull for you anymore."

"I don't understand."

"You're connected to the dead Lyds, means you ain't like other breathers. More in tune you are with the dead, less you notice about the living…you can't have it both ways kid."

If nothing else, it made sense and when she thought about it she'd read a few chapters about something similar in _The Handbook for Living With The Recently Deceased. _

He jerked her up roughly, into his arms and in her bewildered state she went willingly enough though she wasn't sure she'd have protested if she could. He lifted his head, looking down at her and she held completely still despite the hard pressure of his hands on her arms.

It was her eyes that drew his focus and he concluded that she'd always had a truly haunting gravity to her gaze. It was partly why she'd interested him, when she'd been nothing more than a teenage breather. Underneath the thick layers of dark cloth, naïve morbidity and fascination for the dead there had always been _something_ more promising lurking just beneath the surface.

His mouth hovered above hers like a hawk over a wounded sparrow and she briefly considered pushing out of his arms, before things between them took an even more irreversible turn. Though she supposed that wasn't really an option anymore…if it had ever been to begin with. She tilted her face and then her lips were on his, and his hands were as gentle on her body as they'd been rough before.

"Beej," she whispered at length, entirely unsure at this point what she was asking for.

"No broads stuck with me like you have Lyds in six hundred years…figure that's got to count for something."

He sounded as if he'd rather eat nails than admit it.

A sharper, slightly less charitable voice whispered dully somewhere in the back of her mind that his interest in her came only from the fact that, at one point, she'd screwed him over…and he wasn't used to playing second fiddle to anyone. It didn't take much to shake it away.

Lydia wasn't foolish enough to think that she had any defining power over him. Sure she could see ghosts and had a few other party tricks up her sleeve that had always seemed to petrify her small town neighbours, but in essence she was still a…breather and Betelgeuse was an unbound poltergeist with six hundred years of pent-up energy and very little care how he used it.

She wasn't completely defenceless against him, and although she knew she wouldn't stand a chance should he suddenly decide she wasn't worth the hassle, she had a strange sort of influence over him that didn't appear to agitate him as much as she'd thought it would. She supposed he might not have noticed, but she found it difficult to believe he hadn't realised it if she had.

Emotions were a funny thing and despite all the kinks they'd yet to iron out, they'd finally managed to turn a corner, a misshapen and somewhat neglected corner, but things had never been particularly smooth between them…though given that she'd all but fed him to a sandworm, it wasn't all that surprising.

That was enough for now; and she honestly wasn't ready to admit the reason why the heat blooming in her stomach when she kissed him didn't bother her now when she'd fought _so_ hard against it before.

It was an admission that held so much weight it might just sink her…

A crash sounded from the other room, followed by a messy clatter and what sounded distinctly like broken porcelain…and what immediately sprung to mind was that she'd never liked Delia's post-modern avant-garde vase anyway.

"Percy?"

Lydia called, shrugging off the poltergeist and disappearing through the door as the cat's rather sorrowful _meow_ echoed through the kitchen. Betelgeuse shook his head, a scowl settled firmly over his face. Flicking his fingers, his glass reappeared; re-filled but slightly more battered than before.

He took a swig.

"Fucking cat!"

_My hands, they're strong__  
><em>But my knees were far too weak<em>  
><em>To stand in your arms<em>  
><em>Without falling at your feet<em>_

_But there's a side to you__  
><em>That I never knew, never knew<em>  
><em>All the things you'd say<em>  
><em>They were never true, never true<em>  
><em>And the games you play<em>  
><em>You would always win, always win<em>_

_But I set fire to the rain__  
><em>Watched it pour as I touched your face<em>  
><em>Well it burned while I cried<em>  
><em>'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name<em>_

_I set fire to the rain__  
><em>And I threw us into the flames<em>_

Lyrics courtesy of Adele

A/N: Review?...again thank you to all those who took the time to submit a review to Strings To A Deal, in many ways that spurred me on to make more of it. It's in pretty much the same vein as the first, _mostly_…I'd also like to welcome Blackberry out of semi-retirement and wish her luck for all her make-up reviews…I'd imagine there's quite a turbulent road ahead!


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